Loner by Teddy Wayne Page B

you had barely acknowledged me at the Barker Café, I wasn’t going to make another appearance in your room until you accepted my Facebook friendship. I told Sara I’d been having insomnia and needed to sleep in my own bed for a few days.
    By Tuesday my request remained unanswered. If your delay was calculated, it was no longer cute. I wrote an entire essay for you; all you had to do was click a button or press on a screen.
    I waited outside Harvard Hall before Prufrock with my copy of Sister Carrie . As you approached, I casually looked up and licked my finger to turn the page, my eyes briefly meeting yours before returning to the text, so captivated by my internal dialogue with Dreiser.
    â€œYou coming?” you asked at the door.
    â€œThanks,” I said, stepping in behind you and up the stairs. Samuelson was making his introductory remarks as we entered the room and took adjacent seats in the back row.
    I spent the first half of class reacquainting myself with your olfactory presence. Then, as you jotted down Samuelson’s points about the amoral universe and deterministic plot twists of naturalism, you lifted a page in your notebook and readjusted your arm. Your left elbow, in the same black sweater as before, grazed the bottom of my triceps. My instinct was to reposition my arm out of politeness, but I resisted and stayed put. You left it there, the knob of your elbow applying faint, uneven pressure on me as you took notes with your right hand.
    At first I thought you were unaware of it—and this was even more bewitching than the contact: that your indifference to others could translate into such corporeal obliviousness.
    But you had to know. Maybe it was an accident initially, yet once it began, you were enjoying it, the subtle friction of two (clothed) body parts in public as a famous professor lectured. There was no one else in the room with whom you’d done this; I’d been watching, I would’ve known. You’d chosen me.
    For the rest of class we stayed like this. Sometimes your arm would move to take notes farther down the page and create a centimeter of cooling space between us and I’d wonder if that was the end, but it wasn’t long before your elbow reunited with my arm. In a way, this was the most satisfying ecstasy I could imagine, suspended in a limbo state of not knowing and partial touching, the morsel on the tongue though not yet down the gullet.
    When Samuelson’s lecture concluded, so did our dalliance: you abruptly withdrew your seductive joint and stood up to leave. Thelabel of your sweater had flipped up and was poking out from the neck. ZIPPER & BUTTON , it said, upside-down and in reverse. NOTTUB & REPPIZ .
    â€œHey, did I add you on Facebook yet?” I asked as we bounced downstairs.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œI feel like I did. Maybe a few days ago?”
    â€œI always forget to respond to those.”
    â€œHere, let’s put an end to your procrastinating ways,” I said. “Go on now and respond to all your friend requests.”
    Outside, you turned to me, looking as if you were appraising me, wondering if you stood to lose any social status from accepting my invitation.
    â€œAll right,” you acquiesced, taking out your phone. I peeked at the screen. You did, indeed,have a slew of pending requests.
    â€œThere,” you said. “Now we’re the best of friends!”
    â€œYeah, BFFs,” I said with a laugh. “Or is it already plural, because it’s ‘best friends,’ so just BFF?”
    â€œDunno.”
    â€œWell, have a good day,” I said, pivoting toward Matthews, pleased with what my pushiness had accomplished. Ask and ye shall receive.
    â€œYou aren’t going to walk with me?” you called out, sounding playfully hurt.
    I stopped short. We’d already reached the endgame. I couldn’t contain a giddy hiccup. All that ostensible apathy to the Facebook request,